


The Secret Diary of Clark Kent

by BkWurm1



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, Break Up, COMPLETE!, Chlark, Clark is a BDA, Edings are hard so be kind, End of Clois, Epilogue got long, F/M, Hints of Chlois, I did way too much in show fact checking, I liked this Lois, Lois's PoV, Obsessed Clark, Secrets, and sappy, mentions of Chlollie, mildly AU, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BkWurm1/pseuds/BkWurm1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt:  After Lois decides to go through Clark's closets and get rid of things before they move in together, some unexpected surprises turn up that put a halt to Clois!</p><p>(FYI, this ended up being set after Lois and Clark had been living together on the Kent Farm, so the move coming up is to the apartment in Metropolis and the closets became desk drawers.)</p><p>Set season ten.  After Kent (Season10-Episode17 Air Date 4/15/11)  The day after Martha deeds the farm to Clark as a wedding gift, a real estate agent comes poking around, prompting Lois to believe Clark decided to sell the farm without talking to her.  She decides to help him pack.    </p><p>Ends Chlark but story is Lois's PoV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phillydragonldy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phillydragonldy/gifts).



> So full, disclosure, while this story does end Chlark, the whole thing is through Lois's PoV so its accounts of Chlark aren't much more than spoken about. This is a Clois break up story that is near canon compliant (aside from my head canon insertions) through the episode Kent which means it starts with Lois and Clark living on the farm together and Chloe and Oliver "married" in Star City. Don't let that scare you off. This is very much a Chlark love story. But I don't think I was too unkind to Lois either.

**The Secret Diary Of Clark Kent**

 

Lois stomped her way up the stairs. It was just like Clark to decide to sell the farm without talking to her, letting that Marge woman waltz in and start calculating dollar signs less than a day after Martha deeded them the farm. Sure Martha’s letter called it an early wedding present, but the deed was in Clark’s name and apparently he was thought they needed to live in Metropolis.  

 

  What did it matter if her time in Smallville was the longest she’d ever lived in one spot? So what if the farm was the only safety net she’d ever known? Marrying Clark was supposed to officially make the farm her real home, but even before he’d sprung the barracuda broker on her, there’d been signs he wasn’t content anymore.  

Maybe Clark wanting to move was partly her fault. He always offered to whisk her to and from the Planet like he’d done so often for Chloe, but unless imminent death was her only option, letting Clark take her along for the ride left her queasy and vaguely unsettled. Humans were not meant to travel that fast. She’d rather hunker down for the night at the Planet or break out the White Snake for the commute.

So yes, they’d barely seen each other this week, let alone this month, but she wasn’t the only one rarely home. Last week, the nights she was home, Clark had been off literally putting out fires and this week it was floods. Even when they were both at the farm, how many nights did she wake up only to find Clark brooding back in his childhood bedroom?

Which, she decided, made it the perfect place to start. .    

She pivoted at the landing, strode down the hallway past the master bedroom, and pushed open Clark’s old bedroom door with a bang. The room was like a time warp. Had anything changed in the six years since she’d first set foot in it?

Same old blue quilt on his bed. Probably the same pictures on his nightstand. One, two, three, four of them included Chloe and her signature grin. Posters and old football pennants decorated the walls. A shelf opposite the bed displayed a cheap replica of the championship trophy he’d helped win for Smallville High’s football team. The real one was in the display case at the high school but as MVP, the athletics program had presented him with the copy. Why anyone would want a knockoff trophy, she didn’t know, but for a week after they’d given Clark that bit of tin and plastic, he hadn’t stopped grinning that big dopey smile of his. God, what a dork he’d been in high school.

If Clark wasn’t a super powered alien of near god like status, she’d think he came to this room to bask in his high school glory days. She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. Clark was an epis brooder, but their relationship was the best it had ever been.

Lois rubbed her thumb over the bottom curve of the diamond and platinum ring circling her finger. Thank god she’d gotten it back and even bigger thanks Clark hadn’t freaked when she’d confessed to gambling away the symbol of their love and happiness on a lousy roll of the dice. Or was it deal of the cards? Who knows? The whole night was blank except for what Emil’s video camera captured.  

 She couldn’t believe Chloe got fake married to Oliver. It was cute though, how Chloe and Oliver were pretending unlicensed, drunken vows were binding. Even in Emil’s video, Oliver’s promise to never take off his ring lasted only until he kissed the bride.   Then, he stripped the cheap band from his finger and handed it to Clark, telling him it was his turn to go for his happily ever after, only instead of turning to his fiancé; Clark got down on his knee and proposed to Chloe.

According to the Lois on Emil’s video, she’d thought it “perfect” and apparently hilarious, but sometimes she wondered if it was no coincidence she’d left the Temple of Love with Oliver to go gamble away her engagement ring.

 She squashed down the insidious thought just like she had each time before. Clark had been quick to reassure her that the Temple of Love people confirmed he and Chloe also getting fake married was just a prank. Everything was perfect. Their love was perfect. Clark was perfect. When Lois confessed to gambling her ring, he'd reacted perfect.

It hadn’t been what he said that made the difference, but how. Of course he’d assure her nearly losing the ring didn’t matter, that was the kind of guy Clark was. But she'd looked into his eyes and when he said when they got married didn’t matter; she’d read his complete certainty that one day they would be married. It did more than a little to help her let go of the doubts Zantana's Hangover created. Their wedding was going to be perfect and their marriage after that.

But first, Clark needed a lesson in reality. Lois eyed his championship trophy.    

“So Clark thinks he wants to downsize. Fine, I’ll show him what it means to downsize.”

 Lois smirked and grabbed the oversized, gold painted, phallic symbol off the shelf. No space in a city apartment to house a shrine just so he could Crow about the past. Ha! She laughed aloud at her pun. Chloe wasn’t the only one clever with words in the family.

She’d come back with garbage bags latter, but for now she'd pile everything that must go on the bed. She methodically stripped the walls first, taking down his posters and not caring if they tore in the process. Then she went for the remaining “collectables” off the shelves.

Who actually owned a ship in a bottle? Die cast scaled down tractors? Ah, I don’t think so. An alarm clock that didn’t even plug in? It landed with a ping. They had perfectly nice lamps next to their bed in the other room. She ripped the plug out of the socket and bounced the grey goose necked lamp on the comforter. She eyed the half dozen or so framed pictures on his bedside tables before just scooping the whole lot of them into her arms and adding them to the growing pile on the blue comforter.  

 She ignored the twinge in her conscious. If they were such cherished memories, he should have brought them downstairs and added them to the mantle. The new place probably wouldn’t even have a mantle. She plopped down in his worn, but sturdy desk chair. Lord, it was ugly. Too big to put on the bed, but she’d remember to leave it behind. Swiveling to face his desk, she tossed an ancient looking stapler and a pencil sharpener over her shoulder and then yanked at the bottom drawer.

Four thick three ring binders stood so she could easily read the place cards tucked in their spines.

**T/SH 2000-2002**

**T/DP 2003**

**T2004-2005**

**DP2006-2008.**

Curious, she pulled out a binder and flipped open the plastic cover. Huh, newspaper clippings. She smiled for the first time since she’d found the helmet haired, real estate intruder sniffing around the farm. It was sort of sweet that Clark saved something Chloe wrote back when they were freshman.

She turned more pages and frowned. The whole collection was nothing but clippings of Chloe’s writing with an occasional article by Clark himself. He must have scrapbooked their entire high school career.

No, not just articles from The Torch; there were a few Chloe had published in the Smallville Herald. Wow, Smallville really was one big wall of weird back then. She closed the binder and reached for the next one. Like the one before, it was filled with Chloe’s articles from the Torch, but this volume also included pristine copies of her fleeting Daily Planet column. The initials and numbers labeling the binders finally made sense. Lois grabbed the binder with the most recent dates.  

As expected, still articles by Chloe, but now all from The Daily Planet. Hoping she was wrong, she flipped all the way through to the end. She frowned, more disappointed than she’d want to admit that Clark hadn’t included any of her printed triumphs from the Inquisitor or from the time she overlapped with Chloe at the Planet. Really she shouldn't be surprised. Why would he have kept her articles? It’s not like they’d been close back then.

She thought about adding the binders to the stack on the bed, but instead, slipped them back in their drawer. Maybe Chloe would want them.

What was she doing? For the first time in the last half hour she looked around at the mess she’d made and blanched. How did she explain this?   If Clark wanted to move, they were moving. Who was she to question his judgement? She just needed to trust he had a good reason. And she did. She was dating the perfect guy which meant she needed to be the perfect fiancé. She jumped to her feet and headed out the door. Joe from Sports had mentioned a sublease at his building. Maybe if she had a place all picked out, Clark wouldn’t figure out she came this close to trash canning all his oldest and most cherished possessions.    


	2. Chapter 2

  

A few days later, Lois slowly trudged up the stairs carrying in one hand packing tape and in the other, a stack of flat boxes ready to be put together and then carefully filled with the “treasures” she’d already stacked high on Clark’s old bed. So much for downsizing. Oh they were still moving, even if the real estate agent had been nothing more than a misunderstanding. Something happened to Clark when he’d been transported to that parallel universe. He wasn’t talking about it, but suddenly he couldn’t wait to go and she promised to support whatever he felt he needed to do. No matter what she was giving up.

The farm was just a place anyway. Her home was tied to the man, not the place. At least that’s what she forced herself to tell him. If she said if enough times, it would make it true, right? At least Clark hadn’t noticed anything was off. Well, at least about that. He had noticed the mess she’d made in his bedroom. Of course he picked that very night to get his brood on. At least he didn’t question her story about being so eager, she’d jumped the gun and had gotten started on the packing only to realize they didn’t have any boxes.

Last night Clark very thoughtfully made sure to bring boxes. He offered to take care of everything, but she’d told him she had a system already started so he let her have her way.

Lucky her.

Her phone rang as she leaned the flattened boxes against his desk. Chloe’s caller ID came up.

Break time.

“Hi Cuz, what’s up in sunny Star City?”

“Wrong city Lois, it rains here more than in a Gene Kelly musical spectacular.”

“And you, sound like you’re under your own personal storm cloud. Did something happen with your stuff?” She pulled out Clark’s desk chair and sat down.  

“No, no, all the boxes stored at Watchtower arrived fine,” Chloe reassured her. “I’ve even unpacked. All my things are mingling peacefully with Oliver’s things.”

“Then what’s wrong? Aren’t you and Oliver mingling as peacefully?”

“No real fights, if that’s what you’re asking, it’s just…well, between my day job and my new project and his day job and his night gig and constant vague trips out of town, it’s not like we’ve seen each other enough to have fights. Four days away this time and all I could dig up was a flight plan that says ‘The Mediterranean’ and that isn’t even the problem.”

“Uh oh, so there is a problem.” Leaning back, Lois propped her feet up on the desk. “I think you need to expand on what ‘no real fights’ means.”

Chloe sighed. “Besides feeling significantly more like a house sitter than a significant other? The biggest elephant is Oliver going public as the Green Arrow.”

“Still not a fan of the Dancing Arrowette Girls?”

“It’s the why he did it.”

“To test the procedure on the Vigilante Registration Act and give a public face to those behind the mask.”

“That’s what he said publically and while I couldn’t say I approved of inviting Dorothy and everyone else in the merry old land of Oz to peek behind the curtain, I understood why he did it.”

“And now privately, what’s he saying?”

Chloe sighed again, deeper and more drawn out this time. “He thought he was doing it for me. After I left, he got it into his head it was because his secret identity was too much of a burden for me to keep and that’s just…,” Chloe trailed off. “How can I be upset when he risked everything in his life for what he thought I needed, but god, how could he think that was what I needed? Does he not know me at all? Is it any wonder I’m still waiting for that click.”

“Click?”

“A year ago I’d say I’m being too picky, but I had a lot of time for soul searching. I waited for it with Jimmy and except for that week before the wedding when Brainiac blanked out half my brain, nothing ever came close and looking back, I should have known. I cared about Jimmy, even loved him, but not like…not like I should have. I don’t want to make the same mistake.”

“I don’t think I know what you are saying.”

Chloe went quiet for a moment. “That feeling when you’re with someone and you know you can say anything and everything feels right and easy.” A soft laugh escaped, “Or at least a moment when you look around at your mess of a life, but it’s your mess together and somehow together it just makes sense.”

“Does anyone really have that?” Lois asked, certain the answer was no. Take her and Clark. Clark was the one; what he did for the city, the world even, was so important, how could she think otherwise? But each day there were a hundred things she bit back and stuffed down. Easy? No. Life with Clark had her constantly checking her temper and readjusting her needs. She managed her own mess and trusted Clark to handle his. Independently together. That’s the way they worked best.

“I don’t know anymore,” Chloe confessed sounding weary. “I had that click with…it doesn’t matter, all I know is I was swept up in the romance of the idea when I moved in with Oliver. I thought if maybe I just took that leap of faith, I’d find what I couldn’t with Jimmy.”

“Oliver is nothing like Jimmy.”

“But I’m still me. Everything happened so fast. Last year was… a bad year. And Oliver about the only bright spot. When I came back, I wanted us to try again, but since I’ve been back so much of my life hasn’t felt real. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m doing what I want or what I think I should want.”

“Are you rethinking your return to reporting?”

“Oh god no, that’s one place I feel like me. I have years of articles bottled up, waiting to come out. I can’t stop writing. It’s this real, but not real marriage.”

“Then why did you decide to make the one decision you can’t even remember making, the one that you’re going to treat as official?”

Chloe half groaned, half laughed. “I know, it sounds crazier every time I think about it, but at least some part of me stopped dithering and made a decision. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and Zantana’s crazy cocktail did that and more. Was it just a bender to top all benders or did it let happen what I unconsciously wanted most?”

Lois gripped her phone tighter. She was about to ask how ripping in half one fake marriage certificate and going on to marry Clark played into Chloe’s theory when Lois realized something. “Neither you nor Oliver saw the whole video, did you?”

“I don’t think I got past the toasts. I have a confession to make, at the time I was under the very awkward impression it was Clark’s name on the other half of the souvenir marriage certificate. And watching that…anyway, I can’t say how relieved I was it was only Oliver.”

“So you didn’t get a copy of the video or anything?”

“Like Tess was going to let that happen. Neither she nor Emil will even talk about it. Luckily I caught the live version of Emil’s Elvis impression and you already told me about Tess, the desk, and the well timed fade to black. Did I miss anything else?”

Lois silently let out the breath she’d been holding. Chloe didn’t know. And she never needed to know. Since they’d originally watched the video, it had suffered (very conveniently) further corruption; there would never be a second viewing party. Chloe would never see the look in Clark’s eyes as he proposed. She’d never see the lingering kiss the groom gave to his bride. Or the bright smile lighting up her face as Clark joyfully spun them around.

“Lois? Are you still there?”

She’d been there four days later when Clark opened up a large padded, envelope sent from the Temple of Love. Clark and Chloe sprang for the deluxe package which included their gag marriage certificate carefully framed. Thankfully for Lois, the tinkle of shattered glass as she’d thrown it in the trash was the last she’d heard of it.

“Yeah, I’here, just thinking. No Chloe. There was nothing on that video for you to see.” She quickly changed the subject. “About Oliver, I think you’re overthinking things. The ‘click’ you’re waiting for is fantasy getting in the way of reality. Oliver and Star City are your future. You love Oliver.”

“I…I care for him a lot, but is that’s enough?”

Lois rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you have any other options,” she muttered.

“Excuse me?”

Lois winced and tried to walk back what she’d said. “I only mean you have no reason not to at least try and make it work. Do you?” What prompted her to make that last bit a question? Why were butterflies suddenly doing calisthenics in her stomach as she waited for the answer? Why did listening to Chloe question her place at Oliver’s side make her feel so anxious?

There was a long pause on the line before Chloe answered. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t suppose I do. I guess I just needed to be reminded of that. I’m sorry for dumping all this on you. Blame the weather. You’d think seasonal affected disorder would take more than a few weeks to kick in.”

Lois listened to her cousin force a false cheerfulness into her voice and squashed down guilt for putting it there. It’s not like she gave Chloe bad advice. She hated this strange insecurity that sporadically popped up about Chloe. Chloe wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was the one with the problem. She was the one imagining a threat when Chloe and Clark were just friends. Maybe there’d almost been something in high school, but nothing ever happened and Clark never thought of her as anything but a friend.

Chloe was wrong. Zantanna’s spell revealed no secret truths. ‘In Vino Veritas’ was a meaningless expression. Lost in thought, she nearly missed Chloe hanging up.

“I’ll…I’ll talk to you later Lois. Bye.”

“Bye,” she echoed back to silence, staring at Chloe’s number until the screen winked back to black. Frowning, Lois put her phone away and mindlessly reached for one of the flattened boxes as a distraction. Thirty seconds later and a strip of sturdy packing tape on the bottom and she had her first box ready to fill. She spared the mishmash of awards and mementos on the bedspread no more than a glance before deciding to start with Clark’s scrapbook collection.

Emptying out his bottom drawer nearly filled the first box. She didn’t feel like examining the satisfaction she got running the tape gun across the top to seal it shut. Looking for a marker to label the box, she pulled open the top drawer, but instead of paperclips and pens, she found another binder. A much newer and nicer binder, the sort made from the special acid free paper serious scrapbook creators used, her heart sped up in anticipation. Maybe, just maybe…then she read the embossed cover.

           

 **2011 Star City Register - Chloe Queen**.

 

Are you kidding me?! A burning feeling raged in her stomach. She paged through the book. Only a few weeks and Clark had already filled a dozen pages with Chloe’s articles. Why only Chloe? Why wasn’t Clark keeping every article his fiancé published? They didn’t even have a subscription to the Star City Register. Clark had to be running to the West Cost each day so he could collect his next Chloe Queen article. How was Chloe even using that name? Two halves of a fake marriage certificate didn’t make her a Queen any more than the intact one mailed to Clark made her a Kent.  

Annoyed and frustrated at the very sight of the thing, she ripped open the box she just sealed and swept the precious portfolio into the remaining space. It looked like there was just enough room, but in trying to make it fit, something inside the scrapbook dislodged. She pulled the portfolio back out. In her rough hast, some of the creamy, linen pages were coming loose, but causing the most problems was the red leather bound book slipping out of the back pages.

So intent on showing it back in place so she could make the whole disappointing discovery disappear, she almost didn’t’ recognize the book for what it was.

Red leather cover with…yes, there they were… gold embossed initials in the corner. It was the journal she’d given Clark for his birthday the year his dad died. The tightness in her chest threatening to choke her loosened. He’d saved something that came from her.

Her finger’s itched to peek inside - but wouldn’t that ruin the very purpose of giving him a journal? Not that Clark probably ever used it, she reasoned. He’d always been so secretive. Before she’d known why, suggesting he write down all his private thoughts and feelings had made sense, but Clark was too smart to just write down his deepest secrets, right? So looking couldn’t hurt. It was probably blank anyway.

Lois quickly opened to the first page before she changed her mind. Clear, boldly slanted handwriting filled the page. Huh, she was wrong. He had written something. She smirked at the heading of his first entry.

 

_5/5/2006_

_Dear Diary:_

_That's how I'm supposed to start one of these, right?_

_This is dumb. Even if Chloe calls it a journal, it's still the kind of thing an eleven year old girl does._

_So why am I writing in it? No seriously, why am I doing this?   I know Lois was trying to be nice, but writing down the things I don't share would be "galactically stupid". Yes, I'm quoting Chloe. Yes she's making me try this thing out anyway._

_And yes, I lost a bet._

_I should have written “Dear Chloe” instead of “Dear Diary”._

_Lois was wrong anyway. I may not share with her the stuff I normally keep to myself, but I don't need leather bound books - at least, not anymore. Talking to Chloe isn't like talking to my parents or talking to Pete. They worry. About everything. All the time._

_It was fun with Pete for about a week and then it changed. It was like he stopped seeing me as me. I don't really have the right to complain, he was always loyal, but he was no substitute for Chloe. No one is. I feel like I can tell her anything. Probably because I haven't shut up since last fall._

_It's weird. I spent the last year dating Lana. For a time, I even told myself I was ready to spend the rest of my life with her, but the only person I can really talk to is Chloe. Here's a deep dark secret. It was easier breaking up with Lana than it is imagining not having Chloe to talk to every day._

_Which is why it's so stupid for me to be writing in this instead of actually talking to her._

_There. I wrote in it. Bet fulfilled._


	3. Chapter 3

Snooping, Lois reminded herself, was like eavesdropping, you’re not supposed to complain if you hear something you don’t like. Actually it wasn’t that bad. Sure, it stung a little that Chloe had to force Clark to try the journal, but the first entry wasn’t his last so he must have liked the present to keep using it. Or he lost another bet. Lois decided it was only right to check.

The next entry was not much more than a week later. From the date, she realized Clark had written in it a few days after Dark Thursday.  

 

_5/15/2006_

_How can so much change in just a week?_

_Jimmy freaking Olsen. Who the hell is Jimmy freaking Olsen?_

_How could a perfect moment go so wrong? I saw her there waiting at the Planet. Chloe looked up and all the worry and fear hanging on her face melted away. I took in the sparkle in her eyes and the beautiful brilliance of her smile and in that moment, I knew I was home.   She leapt across the room throwing her arms around me like she was never going to let go, but I hesitated, not knowing how to talk about what had happened before I left._

_Why did Chloe say it didn't mean anything? It meant something. It meant everything.   Why did I just go along with pretending it didn’t? Cause Jimmy freaking Olsen was suddenly just there and she was smiling at him._

_I need to say something. Do something. I can't lose her, but what if I mess us up? How did I not understand sooner? What if she really didn't mean anything by it?   But it did. It did!!_

_Ok, ok.   It's going to be ok. It was just vending machine food. Talk about not meaning anything. I’ll wait a couple weeks, let things go back to normal. Then once Jimmy freaking Olsen goes back to where he came from, I can tell her._

 

Lois sat back stunned. And then her teeth clench tightly together. ‘Just friends’ my ass. What would have happened if Clark hadn’t sat back and given Jimmy all the time he needed to make his move? And what was the “it” Clark had been so sure meant something? She closed her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath.  

She was overreacting. So what if almost five years ago Clark had looked at Chloe like that. Sure, it was a surprise, but did it change anything? No, it was forever ago. He’d lived with Lana since then. It didn’t mean anything. Except, he’d kept it a secret all this time.

She grabbed her phone and dialed his number. It rang several times before going to voicemail. Did she want to leave a message at the beep? She disconnected her call.

She needed to know more and at the same time she was dreading what she might find. Scrunching up her eyes to almost a squint, she flipped the page, just long enough to peek at the date of the next entry. Hmm. End of September 2008. That was right around when Tess offered Clark a job. The tension seeped out of her shoulders. Working at the Planet with one very special brunette reporter. After two years of not writing in his journal, that had to be the special event that had him rushing back to write in the journal she gave him. Whatever he’d felt for Chloe was long gone by that point. Lois confidently turned the page and read the first line of his entry.

 

_Chloe’s going to marry him and it’s all I can do now to not to give into rage and rip the barn apart._

 

Crap.

Lois really, _really_ hated being wrong.

 

_9/25/2008_

_Chloe’s going to marry him and it’s all I can do now to not to give into rage and rip the barn apart. She tells me and I just stood there, staring at the plastic ring on her finger. But Jimmy is her path to normal. More than anyone, Chloe deserves that life, a life I can't give her. I can't stand in her way. I won't.   I love her too much for that._

_There. I said it. The one thing I can't tell Chloe._

_But I was going to. So stupid. How could I have let myself wait so long? I knew it wasn’t right with Lana. I knew two years ago what I wanted; why stay in denial? Why did it take ~~an ice fortress dropping on my head~~ a huge wake-up call to make me face up to what's always been true? _

_Knowing Chloe needed me is what kept me fighting to get back home. I was finally going to tell her and Jimmy freaking Olsen be dammed, but by the time I got back to her, Jimmy was there. I tried to be patient, but he was always there._

_Too late now._

_This isn't helping._

Tears stun Lois’s eyes. He’d loved her. Of course he had. How had she not seen it before? If she was honest with herself, part of her had always known. What else could explain the irrational anxiety she had about their friendship? Still, Clark hadn’t tried to stop her from marrying Jimmy. He gave her away at her wedding. And it was almost three years ago. Lois moved on to the next entry. This one only a week before Chloe’s disastrous wedding.

 

_11/13/2008_

_What have I done?   Oh Chloe, what have I done?_

_It's too hard. She's there, but she's gone. Erased in front of my eyes._

_And it's my fault. Chloe used to say I blamed myself for everything, but there's no escaping who's to blame this time. She is better off without my lies in her life. Ever since her engagement, I've tried letting go. I backed off. Tried to handle things on my own.   I even let her tell me what ~~Brainiac was doing~~ was happening to her was fine because it was easier to be the one pulling back than to watch her walk away. _

_And now even though she's right here, she's gone._

_She doesn't look at me the same anymore._

_She might as well be Lois. Worse than Lois. At least Lois thinks I look good in a suit._

_I’ve made so many mistakes in the past, but nothing I've ever done or said ever changed the way Chloe looked at me, even back in senior year when she stopped talking to me after whatever Lionel must have said. Mad and hurt, but she still saw me. But now, that thing is gone from her eyes._

_Chloe still treats me as a friend, but she's… I don’t know how to explain it. That thing I’d taken for granted ever since the first day we met is missing. It’s like she’s disconnected. The pieces don’t fit._

_It shouldn’t matter. I don't deserve for her ever to look at me that way again. I know that, but how do I live this way?_

_So why not Lois? No one is ever going to look at me like Chloe again. What does it matter?_

Trembling, Lois closed her eyes, but even with her eyes shut she couldn’t stop seeing what he’d written. “ _So why not Lois_?” A rush of conflicting emotions washed over her. Part of her still wanted to dismiss everything she’d read, but nothing was as she’d thought. She couldn’t ignore what she knew now. As to what she didn’t know…that worried her even more.

She retrieved her phone again and texted Clark. “ _We need to talk.”_

She kept the message simple. He’d know she wasn’t in danger, but unless he was on an emergency, Clark would respond soon. Twenty minutes tops. If work had him too busy, he’d call. More likely though, he’d come straight home.

Home. To the place he couldn’t wait to leave behind. His attitude didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense anymore. She couldn’t even imagine what Clark thought he’d done to Chloe. She knew she should stop reading and go downstairs to wait for him, but she also knew she wasn’t going to do that.

For the first time in her life, Lois wished she was the kind of person who could let something go, but she was who she was. The next entry was a few days after Chloe’s wedding. It was very short.

 

_11/24/2008_

_Chloe remembers everything again. I should be thankful to have my friend back, but now I can't look her in the eye knowing what I did. And she's married and Jimmy is in the hospital._

_I have to stay away._

 

Listlessly, Lois noted that stay away is what Clark had done. For five months. There were no entries even as Chloe’s marriage blew up in her face. April the second. Lois tried to remember what was going on then. She was pretty sure she’d been away on an assignment. Chloe’s birthday had been the week before. So April 2nd had to be right around the time Davis Bloom was outed as the Cornfield Killer only to vanish.

_4/2/2009_

_I want to go to Chloe so badly, but there’s a distance between us, a wall I put there with my own guilt. I want to grab her and hold her until that haunted look leaves her eyes. She did it for me. She didn’t want to pull that lever, but when he started turning, she did it anyway. And all I could do was stand back and watch her weep. It's my fault she was forced to make this choice. All I seem to do is add to her pain._

 

 She felt her interest quicken. This had to be the point where Clark finally moved past whatever feelings he thought he had.

 But what the hell happened? What had Chloe done? And why would Clark be guilt ridden? It didn’t make sense. He was The Blur, Metropolis’s own hero. He was the closest thing to a god on earth. Why would he harbor guilt for his actions? Lois stuffed down her own guilt at feeling happy over Chloe’s clear misery and Clark’s distance.

 

_5/1/2009_

_She's gone. Oliver was wrong. Chloe left to save me, but she's wrong too. More than anything, I need her here._

_I'm a coward. How many times was I too afraid to say something? More than you know. Silence felt safe, but you’re not safe now. How did I screw up so badly that I left you to think you had to save me, not just me, but the whole world, alone?_

_What I almost did with Davis, you were right. It wasn’t real justice, but I'd have lived with the guilt for a thousand years rather than never see you again._

_I will find you Chloe. I will find you and I will bring you home to where you belong, here with me always. I won’t be a coward anymore._

Distance, Lois concluded, changed nothing. Clark had to be talking about when Davis kidnapped Chloe. Only Chloe hadn’t been kidnapped. She left with Davis to save Clark? Lois suddenly realized she only knew what she’d been told. Chloe coming home. That monster mysteriously rampaging around the city. Davis Bloom one of his many victims, along with, coincidentally, Jimmy. She’d lost all that time. No not lost time, traveled forward in time to some alternative future she couldn’t remember that now would never happen. When she had returned, Chloe and Clark were barely talking. And she’d been too wrapped up in her own life to wonder why.

Clark wrote that he needed Chloe. He was going to say something. Had he? Was that the cause of the gulf between them? She rushed to read the next entry.

 

_5/8/2009_

_Dear Chloe,_

_I watched you die today._

_Again._

_All the times I waited for you to wake up, as awful as the waiting was, at least those times came with hope. This was too much like the walking nightmare ~~the phantom trapped me in~~ I had._

_Only a moment passed before I knew it wasn’t you lost in my arms, but time stopped in that moment. Nothing mattered anymore. All that was left was rage and hopelessness. That can't happen ever again. It wasn't you this time, but if I do what I want to do, wouldn't I be putting you in danger all over again? I will save you, but you deserve better. You always have._

 

 Lois ignored the tears sliding down her cheeks. She ignored the ache around her heart and the twisting sensation in her gut. All she could do was keep reading.

 

_5/16/09_

_Dear Chloe,_

_Staying away is the hardest thing I've ever done._

_I've failed you. Jimmy, Lois, even Davis. All of them are my fault. I pushed you away when I should have held you close. I rushed in blindly when I should have listened. I stayed silent when I should have told you ~~how much I love you~~ how much you mean to me._

_I sit here aching in a way I didn't know was possible ~~without kryptonite~~ , but I know this goodbye is the right thing to do. Because of it, you're safe and free.   _

_It's too late now - even if I can’t stop dreaming of a second chance for us. I've started my training. When I see you next, part of me will already be gone and you will hate me._

_I used to worry he'd turn me into the emotionless automaton my mom said I became last time. I think I welcome it now._


	4. Chapter 4

Lois was past the point of trying to make sense of anything, so she simply turned the page, but a sheet slipped from the journal and fell to the floor. Retrieving it, she realized it had been torn from the book. Lines and lines of the same two phrases repeated again and again covered the page front to back.

**_Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone. Clark Kent is dead. So alone. So alone._ **

**_Clark Kent is dead._ **

Every entry was done in Clark’s bold handwriting. A shiver slithered down her spine. Looking at the page made her nervous. It was an eerie reminder that Clark, however normal he might look, was an alien in more ways than just his powers.

She ran her thumb over the rough edges that remained attached to the spine of the journal and realized at least five pages had been torn out. Looking at the remaining page and feeling a bit queasy, she could guess why.  

My god! What had Jor-El done to Clark? Whatever it was had lasted for nearly a year.

 

_4/18/ 10_

_Dear Chloe,_

_For the first time in months, I'm awake.   It's like I've been watching myself from the outside and it's me but it's not me. Zod, Lois, keeping you at arm’s length, the accusations... I can't explain. How did I get here? Where did we go? Who am I?_

_There have been moments when the fog parted, moments of clarity like last week after Waller had you, but this time the clarity stayed. The exposure to ~~RedK~~ to red meteor rock maybe? _

_I keep replaying everything I've done, all the choices I've been making. Nothing makes sense. Was is guilt? Regret I never told you? Anger that you could leave me? Jor-El interference? Clark Kent was dead. Sacrifice the one to save the world. So alone. But I haven't been alone, not since you found out the truth. God, Chloe, I miss you._

_This distance between us...I don't know how to fix it. I'm not even sure I should._

_I'm with Lois. You're with Oliver. Both feel wrong to say and I can't say how it started, but I do feel something for her and I have seen that you care for him. I don't want to hurt anyone._

_Right now I'd trade anything just to have my best friend back. Do I even know how to be your friend? The way I acted, tonight especially, it scared me. I was ~~on RedK~~ not myself, but I can't blame everything on a substance. I hurt you. I scared you. Deliberately. _

_I don't know how to live with that, but I have to try._

 

Lois read on without stopping.

 

_5/8/10_

_Dear Chloe._

_I feel funny talking about this with you but it also feels right. Lois broke up with me. You’ve been encouraging me to tell her the truth. Got the same advice from my Mom, but it was something she said about her and Perry White that I can’t help thinking about. She said, “I guess we were all pretending things were better than they were.”_

_You and I talked about me telling Lois weeks ago but after I found out that she’d been working with the Blur behind my back, I didn’t. This is the part where you would laugh at me, but it was Zod. That night when she and I were supposed to talk, she confessed and explained working with the Blur was over.   I asked her if I was enough for her now. She didn’t answer, but I realize now I got my answer._

_I can hear you in my head. You’d say I’m not being fair, but when you didn’t know my secret, I was enough. Clark Kent isn’t special enough for Lois Lane and no matter what I can do, I’m still the same person. She’s different with the Blur. I could fall all the way for that person, but she doesn’t share that side of her with me._

_Not telling her is the right thing to do. If I told her the truth about who I am, I could never really be sure if I’m really enough. I was pretending things were better than they were._

_I’m doing that with you too; I’m pretending that this tentative return to true friendship is enough. It’s not._

_5/15/10_

_Dear Chloe,_

_When you read this, I’ll be gone. To my mom, our friends, even Lois, I could do it, but I couldn’t say goodbye to you. I don’t know how._

_For a time, I was afraid I'd destroyed the connection between us, but I saw it there in the tears you tried not to shed. I saw it in the faith you inexplicably still have in me. I saw it in your courage to keep on fighting._

_You said you can’t imagine a world where I don’t exist. I can’t imagine one without you, so I take them with me, these parts of you that I’ve relied on all these years to make me feel whole. Where I am to lead my people, I won’t have any special gifts, but I believe it will be alright because you’ve always believed in me, with or without them._

_I’ve left a note asking my mother to get this journal to you._ _There things in its pages I want you to know. Too many times I’ve wished in these pages that thing could be different, but it’s still true._

_I don’t want to go and if there was any other way, there is no risk or chance I wouldn’t take. Maybe in a world where such a chance existed, maybe in that world there would also be room for you and I to take a chance as well._

_When I started this entry, it was supposed to make up for not being able to say goodbye, but I think maybe there are some people to whom you are never meant to say goodbye, so I’m not going to. If there is a way for us to meet again, I will find it. Until then, all I can wish for is your happiness and hope that even though I’m not there, you will still feel the love I will always carry that belongs only to you._

_I’m out of time. Why is it always the wrong time?_

Lois sat back and stared unseeing at the wall.  Clark never left. He had found a way to stay, one that almost left him dead. Finding him broken and bleeding in the street, cold and pale from the pouring rain, that blue dagger still lodged in his chest had been the most painfully confusing nights of her life. Clark Kent was the Blur. His farewell kiss had given him away. But only the Blur had said farewell. Clark had offered congratulations on her new job in Africa.

No that wasn’t all he’d said. There in his loft he brought up the beginning of that year when he’d come back, saying he’d felt lost only to see her waiting in the Planet for him. He talked about her jumping up and throwing her arms around him and knowing from the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled that she was the one he needed, but had he even been talking about her? From everything he’d written, she no longer thought so. She’d begged him that night in his barn to tell her the truth, but even though Clark thought he was leaving forever, he refused.  

Could she really blame him? She’d trusted Zod over him. And still as the Blur he came after her and saved her from Zod. She’d begged his forgiveness and instead of answering, he’d kissed her goodbye and left. Everything after that was a blur until she’d found him in the street. It was her turn to save him, but he never knew. When she next saw him, for Clark, nothing had changed, so she left to take that job on the other side of the world. She should have stayed there.

“Lois!”

Clark called out from out downstairs, the screen door banging shut behind him. She didn’t bother calling back to him. He’d be able to find her. If she’d been in any danger, he’d already be at her side. Lois glanced down at the journal and flipped through the final pages. Many more of them were filled, but she’d read enough. Toward the back, marking the page of his most recent entry, she found another loose sheet of paper. She turned it over and stared at it until she heard Clark’s footsteps on the stairs. Then she calmly tucked it back in place and closed the journal she’d given Clark to hold his most precious thoughts. She sat motionless as he pushed open the door to his past.

“Lois, I got your text. Is everything ok?”

She neither looked at him nor said a word, but only angled the red leather journal on the desk toward Clark.

“Oh.” The simple, single syllable fell from Clark’s lips like a sigh. It’s all he needed to say for her to know he knew its significance, but his calm reaction stole away hers. She snapped her head in his direction.

“Is that it? Is that all you can say?” What was there really to say? He knew she was going to pack up his old bedroom. Had he wanted her to find the journal? She studied him as he struggled for something to say. He was dressed for the office even though no one expected him to keep to a dress code on the weekends. He’d gone in to catch up on some of the grunt and prep work always saddled on a junior reporter, things he’d been too busy to handle last week because of the floods. And yet Clark hadn’t been too busy to swing through Star City and pick-up a copy of the Star City Register each day. He’d probably been there already this morning.

Lois studied his button down dress shirt for signs of rain before dismissing the notion. Any precipitation would dry as he zipped across country. Her text had probably reached him at the Planet. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up exposing his perpetually tanned and beautifully muscled forearms. He was right; she did think he looked good in a suit and even better out of the suit coat.  Would she have ever seriously considered him had he not traded in the blue tee and red jacket? Chloe had. She’d always seen beneath his bucolic surface.

Clark took a tentative step forward, closing the door behind him as if he could keep contained what was already loose. "What's in that journal,” he finally told her in careful, measured tones, “has nothing to do with what's between us."

She tapped the cover with the tip of her index finger. “That’s funny, because that's what I kept telling myself, only if that were true, you would never have kept from me how you felt about Chloe. You came back from Dark Thursday wanting to be with her, only Jimmy got there first and for some reason, you've been acting like there's a mountain standing between you two ever since, but as far as I can tell, the only obstacle is your fear.” She cocked her head to the side. “Afraid of hurting her, but I think even more afraid of getting hurt.”

Clark frowned. “It's not that simple.”

“It is.” Lois laid her palm flat against the leather cover. “I have five years of proof in your handwriting. It always comes back to Chloe. I don't even need the journal. Every time the world falls apart, big or small, she's the one you turn to, she's the one you trust to help put the world back together.” Lois felt her control slip further away. “Hell, whammied by Zantana's spell, she's the one your instincts told you to follow.”

“You are my future,” Clark insisted. “You are the one I'm marrying.” His aquamarine eyes were mesmerizing. His sincerity brimmed over. Part of her wanted to just believe him and never talk about it again.

She shook her head. “How do you do that? Every ounce of my instinct is telling me you really believe that, but that same instinct is screaming that if you could have it another way, you would.” Clark’s eyes dropped to the floor. She almost laughed, but was afraid what would come out might have an hysterical edge. What was she expecting? Denials? There was no denying what she now knew. But she didn’t know everything.

“Why are you doing it?”

A crease of confusion appeared on Clark’s forehead. “Chloe,” she clarified. “Why are you giving her up without ever even letting her know?”

Emotions rushed too fast over his features for her to identify them all before he adopted a stoic, almost placid look. His hands fisted at his side made a joke of his attempt.

“Chloe isn't my destiny.”

“Destiny? So the person that had been in love with you for what feels like her whole life, who has been helping you reach for your destiny just as long, isn't your destiny, but me, who you still keep in the dark about what's happening, I'm your destiny?” This time she did laugh, a short, bitter bark. She rose to her feet, hurt and indignation surging through her veins.

“I thought knowing your secret meant I knew you, but I don't, do I. It was there in front of me the whole time. And smack in my face in the virtual world. You'd spent months miserable, hiding how lost you felt without her, trapped in doubt by your own guilt over whatever you did that you think makes everything so impossible. And you are still hiding the truth. How did I not see it?”

 He took another step forward, closing the distance between them. He reached for her hands.

“Lois, you are who I am going to marry.”

Once again, the promise delivered in his gaze reached out to tempt her. But blinking, she jerked her head back and a second later, her hands. Honestly bewildered, she shook her head, trying to clear away the contradiction.  

 “You're doing it again.” Her voice raised in pitch. “How is it I almost believe you even though I know I’m not who you really want? How can you act so certain?”

“Because I've seen the future.”

She hadn’t expected him to answer and certainly hadn’t expected that as an answer. Her hands flew to her hips.

“What the hell does that mean?” She demanded.

“Just what it sounds like.”

“How?!”

“It's a long story.”

“Which you've never bothered to tell.” She crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest “Was it Jor-El? A freaky magic spell? Kryptonians hitting puberty? The Legion and their ring again? What?!”

Clark pushed his hands into his pockets. “Actually, it was through the ring.”

Skeptically, Lois raised an eyebrow. “And you traveled to the future where I was your destiny?”

“A few years from now,” he nodded. “We were together, you had the ring, you knew my secret. Fear was holding me back from telling you, but once Brainiac showed me the future...”

“Wait, Brainiac! What the hell? The thing that put Lana in that coma and played with Chloe's mind?”

“He'd been fixed in the future. He worked for the Legion.”

 “So says that mass murdering computer. Let’s pretend I believe that, so you pop into the future, see we're together, that I didn't betray you or reject you after learning your secret...and THAT is why you told me? Because I came with a guarantee?”

His mouth opened and closed as he looked for the words to deny it, but she didn’t want to hear the excuses.

“And now it makes sense. I always wondered why you finally fessed up, I mean you encouraged me to leave the country and even when I came back and you barely reacted, which I get now.   You were too caught up in losing Chloe when she vanished and pretending your whole world wasn't rocked. Rehabbed robot takes you on a magical mystery tour and pow, two months later here comes the sparkly ball and chain.”

“Lois, it was more than just a glimpse of the future. After Zod and the Kandorians were gone, after Chloe used Fates Helmet and left...Jor-El...Jor-El rejected me. Warned me I had a darkness inside. Brainiac explained part of that darkness came from me holding on to the past, punishing myself and everyone close to me for my past mistakes. He showed me I would have a good future if I moved on and put my past behind me. I could still be the hero I was destined to be.”

“That's what you got from him? Did you hear yourself? He told you to stop punishing yourself and those around you for the past. I bet what he didn't say was to cut yourself off from it or give up what mattered most to you.”

“It's a good future. Better than I dared dream.”

“And no more real than a dream.   I should know, so should you. You’re the one that explained to me that during my missing weeks, I actually traveled to the future, a future where Zod took over the world and Chloe died trying to save humanity.”

“Yes.”

“But none of that happened because this time around you made the right choices. Whatever Brainiac showed you is no more your destiny than Zod’s destiny is to rule the Earth.”

Clark’s head rocked back like he’d been slapped, well like if Kara slapped him. Finally he got it. But that didn’t make letting go any easier.   

“But…I love you.”

Hearing him say it soothed something stinging deep inside her, but it changed nothing. “I think you mean it and I mean it when I say I love you too, but,” she paused and turned back to his journal. She pulled out the loose page marking his most recent entry and placed it face up on top of his journal. “Do either of us really mean it in the way it matters most?”

The stylized writing on the Certificate of Marriage used by the Temple of Love clearly named Chloe Anne Sullivan and Clark Jerome Kent as united in holy matrimony. Despite the claims of being in accordance with state and local regulations, it was no more legal than ripped up one between Oliver and Chloe, but the fact that Clark had saved it from the trash can where she’d tossed it and placed it with all his other unspoken hopes and dreams said it all. If she’d had any doubts, the longing in his eyes as he gazed at the certificate would have put them to rest.

“In your journal, you said over and over Chloe deserves better than you and you know what, she does, but she went and fell in love with you and God help me, I don't think she ever completely stopped.”

Clark looked up. Hope flared briefly in his eyes before fading to despair.

“She's with Oliver.”  

“And five minutes ago you were engaged to me. Guess what. Your future changed. No more guarantees, well except one.” Lois slipped the ring from her fourth finger on her left hand off and handed it to Clark. “I'm not in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue to follow!


	5. Chapter 5

_Epilogue_

 

One phone call to Perry White and Lois had her old job in the African Bureau back. She packed two suitcases and left instructions for anything else to be put in storage. Before she left Metropolis, she sent three emails: one to the Planet with her resignation, one to Martha with her regrets, and one to Chloe with one single sentence; _Follow your heart_. With that, she boarded her flight, and for four months she ignored all calls, texts and emails from her closest friends and family.

She wasn’t totally cut off from what was happening. She was glued to the television like the rest of the world when Superman made his debut, saving the world from colliding with Darkseid’s Apocalyptic planet. She even released a statement to the press stating that while she supported what her cousin had done, she had no prior knowledge that Chloe Sullivan planned to infiltrate the president’s plane using press credentials in the name of Lois Lane. Months later and she still fielded interview requests from misinformed journalists wanting to speak to the woman instrumental in preventing an environmentally crippling nuclear launch as well as narrating Superman’s introduction to the Planet.

She kept up with all the papers back in the states and read the account from the Green Arrow’s lips of his own fight back to the light after being marked by the darkness, a struggle that mirrored what so many others on the planet faced before Superman restored their faith and hope. He spoke of how his darkness was compounded by his devastation after the woman he loved abruptly broke off their relationship, not to turn to someone else, but to choose herself and of his continued attempts now to make the same healthy choice.

Days later, she’d clicked on the link Perry White forwarded to her when the Daily Planet welcomed back Chloe Sullivan to their ranks. And each time Cat Grant sent a care package (a continued practice that managed to be both insulting – seriously, deodorant? - and delicious – mmm, triple chocolate fudge, caramel cookies) she included a long, gossipy letter about what was happening at the DP. Lois snickered through all of the complaints listed against “Lois’s replacement”. They almost made Cat’s now fond reminiscence about Lois’s “brash but limited emotionally based rhetoric” palatable. At least the “pristinely fact checked exposes and impassioned editorials arguments Sullivan was now regularly dropping into the Planet’s pages” were driving Cat into a tizzy of stress baking.

It was nearly at the four month mark when Cat started dropping cryptic comments about the closeness between newly partnered reporters Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan. It was also at the four month mark when Chloe put an end to Lois's self-imposed exile. One day late in the afternoon, suddenly every device she touched started spamming her with "requests" to call her cousin. A huge longing had risen up and she realized that enough time had passed. She made the call and because Chloe was Chloe, ten minutes later, they were hugging and crying in the back corner of one of Nairobi’s local cafés.

Chloe looked wonderful, not just in a sight for sore eyes kind of way, but Lois realized the constant strain that pulled at her brow and pinched her lips, a strain Lois hadn’t even recognized as such, was gone. Slightly overdressed in a long, flowing cottony dress, with thin crisscrossing straps, Chloe seemed calmer, more at ease than Lois could recall her being in years.  

For a moment it was enough to sit quietly on either side of their optimistically decorated little table and wait for their iced coffees. Wide mouth, green glass bottles that once held imported beer made surprisingly pretty vases for the small bouquets of the wildflowers plucked from the road side. It was one of the things Lois had grown to love about Africa, the unexpected beauty that perpetually sprang up from and in the most unlikely places.  

She relaxed as Chloe’s rapid patter rapidly filled in a lot of the holes in her information chain. She heard about how close Tess came to Lex handing out his warped version of mercy only for Oliver to arrive in the nick of time. The newest returned Luthor was still undergoing tests after the “mysterious” loss of his memory. The courts quietly gave guardianship to his only remaining relative. Tess was doing her best to keep their kinship out of the papers and Lex from ever being a threat again.

Lois found out Chloe’s reason for using her name to gain access to Airforce One. Lois and the world could be grateful her father, the General, for once had allowed nepotism to sway hid decisions. Chloe also updated her on Martha’s plans for another term in the Senate and that Clark had the deed to the farm reverted back to his mother. Neither had any immediate plans to live there again, but both decided some memories were worth holding on to for the future.

Lois also soon found out that Cat for once had gotten her gossip right, though technically, Chloe and Clark had officially remained "just friends" until very recently. That though turned out to be the crux of Chloe's visit. She'd been taking Lois's advice to follow her heart for the past four months. It had prompted her to get out of a relationship that didn't feel right no matter how good it looked on paper or signed on a certificate. It had brought her back home to the city and newspaper she loved. It pushed her to risk everything when it mattered most. It allowed her to help save the worlds and still be furious at Clark for whatever it was that he'd done, but to forgive him without reservation when he convinced her of his remorse. It let her reclaim her best friend and it demanded she let her cousin know how much she was loved and missed, and now, Chloe explained, her heart was telling her to take one last giant leap.

Lois squeezed her cousin’s hand. “You don’t need my permission.”

Chloe squeezed it back. “And I’m not actually asking for it. It’s always been Clark and it will always be him. For a time, I thought that meant losing myself in him, but the truth is, I’m never more me than when we are together.”

Lois nodded. She’d had a lot of time to think. “The same is true for Clark, isn’t it, I see that now.”

“He sees it too. We’re done hiding from each other. It took him a while to convince me though.”

Lois snorted, “Not that long, even if it took him years to start trying. How can a man that perfect, be that dumb?” She cringed, the moment the words left her mouth. That was just the sort of thought she tried to keep bottled up, but when Chloe laughed, she remembered she no longer had to worry about censuring herself. The freedom was intoxicating. She snapped her fingers at the owner of the café and pointed at the bottle used as a vase on the table, silently signaling her request. If she wanted a beer, she was going to have a beer.

“Clark’s never going to be perfect,” Chloe insisted still laughing, “of course then, neither am I, but together…,”

Lois tilted her head, studying the happiness almost radiating off of her cousin. “You click. Your mess and his mess mixed up together.”

Chloe nodded. “Right now, quite literally.” She rushed on at Lois’s raised eyebrow. “I’d been temporarily subletting a place in Metropolis until I found somewhere permanent. I found,” she paused and blushed. “We found,” she said, emphasizing the correction, “a gorgeous old brownstone row house. The deal of the century really, but it needed a lot of work done before it was ready for us - that’s an understatement. Clark should be dropping off the last of the boxes right now. We’ll sort through them and make it work somehow. I can’t wait until you can see it. I’m still finding new things I love every day and even though I know it will probably take constant upkeep, it will be so worth it.”

  Somehow Lois knew Chloe was talking about more than just her new home. “I’m very happy for you.”

Lois shook her head, “Maybe I should be surprised at how fast you decided to live together, but honestly, I’m not.”

 “Actually, everything is a little faster than you think. Deciding to live together just made sense… once we decided to go back to the Temple of Love.” Chloe tensed, waiting for a reaction.

 Lois jumped to her feet and grabbed Chloe’s hand searching for proof. “You got…,”

“Not yet,” Chloe interrupted. “It’s where we’re headed after Clark picks me up.” She reached into her purse and slipped the ring on her left hand.  

Lois grabbed her hand again and turned it in the light for a better look. She decided it was smaller and less flashy than the sparkly explosion Clark had given her, but the old fashioned cut and more intricate setting set it apart as special, unique. It screamed Chloe. For a second, she was struck with how surreal it felt to be mentally comparing rings they’d each been given by Clark, but the pang of envy she expected never materialized. What Chloe had with Clark was something entirely separate from anything she and Clark had tried to find. “It’s beautiful. Still, what’s the rush and really, going back to the place you ‘married Oliver’, isn’t that…tacky?”

Chloe laughed again. “Maybe if I had a lick of memory from playing here comes the bride with Oliver.” She grew more pensive. “It’s not the place that matters, not to me and Clark, well he showed me the certificate in our names. He got it in his head to want a real one from the same place to add to the collection.”

Lois rolled her eyes. “God, he’s such a dork.” It was hard to think of The Blur, the near perfect god she’d been planning on marrying as the same person as tacky Clark Kent, but then, that had been the problem right along, hadn’t it? She glanced at Chloe to see if she’d taken offence. If anything, the moony expression on her face only deepened. Affection for her cousin welled up.

“As for the rush, well, somethings are definitely worth the wait, but sometimes there’s no good reason to wait. With everything in our lives, all the risks and uncertainties, well, we wanted this one thing right now just for ourselves.”

“Aren’t you telling anyone?”

Chloe shrugged, “It’s not going to be a secret, but so far only you and Martha know of our plans. I know this has had to have been a lot harder than you are letting on. Just dumping all this on you, it’s been a lot to ask, but,” tears shimmered in her eyes, “I didn’t want to hide something this important to me and I would have hated going through with it while you still weren’t talking to me.”

Hated it, yes, Lois could see the hurt it would have caused Chloe, but it wouldn’t have stopped her from following her heart all the way. And that way had always been right to Clark. Again, Lois waited for jealousy or regret to wash over her, but time had finished the job that facing reality hadn’t.  

“Neither the Sullivan or the Lane women are known for keeping quiet for long.”

A watery laugh escaped from Chloe.

“Thank god!”

And with that, things felt normal again between them. Lois spent the rest of their time before Clark’s return catching Chloe up with her life. Being an on scene correspondent suited her better than she could have imagined. Her job had taken her all over the continent (or rather continents as Chloe pointed out.) Europe, Africa, Asia. She’d seen and done more in the last four months (well, reporter wise) than she’d done in all of her years at the Planet and the Inquisitor combined.

Someday she’d worry about finding someone to share her life with, but for now she was grateful she had a whole wide world in which to find herself. The real Lois, not the one that had been ready to settle down and settle for someone that could never promise to put her first. From here on out, she was taking her own advice, and following her heart. Where that would take her, she didn’t know, but that is what made life an adventure.

Too soon, Chloe checked the time on her phone and said she had to go; Clark was waiting for her around the corner.

“He doesn’t have to hide you know. You can tell him it’s ok if he picks you up in person.”

Chloe nodded toward the front of the café, “Thanks, you just did.” Clark hesitantly waved from the entrance.

“God, Chloe,” Lois muttered. “Doesn’t it freak you out when Clark does stuff like that? Anytime, anywhere he’s listening.”

“Freak me out?” Chloe shook her head as she stood up from the table, her eyes locked on the man coming toward her. “I am never going to complain about a significant other actually listens, not,” she paused and let a little smile play around her lips, “that he listens ALL the time.”

“If this is about the supply closet incident, I do NOT want details.”

“You know about that!”

“Fortunately my sources were vague enough that I get to still eat dinner.”

Chloe was in the middle of smothering a laugh when Clark joined them. He wore a neatly pressed dark suit, which standing next to Chloe in her white flowy dress suddenly made her look exactly like the bride she really was. In what seemed an unconscious act, he slipped an arm around Chloe’s waist, pulling her close to his side and then offered his hand to Lois.

“Lois.”

“Smallville.” She shook his hand and again was struck by the surreal. Even standing there two feet away looking decidedly yummy in his suit and tie, she wasn’t sad. Or more surprisingly mad. This was Chloe’s Clark, the boy Lois had heard about from her cousin since the day Gabe insisted they move to a little backwater town in Kansas, USA. This was the Clark that smirked when Lois stepped in dog poop and who squeaked his chair like an annoying younger brother just to get attention. This was the Clark that got caught making out with his girlfriend next to the reams of copy paper and green highlighters. And this was Superman.

Chloe was welcome to her mess.

“Congratulations,” she remembered to add.

“Thank you.” He didn’t try to apologize for the past. She appreciated that. They may not have been right for each other at all, but she didn’t want to be something he was sorry about. Clark glanced down at Chloe. “Ready to go?” Nodding, Chloe slid her arm around his waist and leaned into his side. Together as one, they turned to leave.

 “Oh, wait!” Lois called out and pivoted back to the table to pluck out a sprig of bright blue flowers from the make shift vase. “Here.” She gave the scraggily bloom to Chloe and then pressed a quick peck on the cheeks of both Chloe and Clark. “It’s borrowed and blue.”

 Oh Lois, it’s perfect.” Chloe quickly gave her a one armed hug. “Now all I need is old and new.”

 "Naw, you’re set. The way I figure it,” she said pulling back and suddenly feeling completely at peace with all her choices, "what you and Clark have, started long ago, even if figuring it out is still recent.  That's the best old and new I've ever heard of."  

“Thank you Lois,” Clark added solemnly. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“Don’t sweat it. The only thing you and me were destined to do was break up. Frankly, you are not my type. A diary Smallville? Yikes.”

 


End file.
